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Release No: 467-95August 24, 1995

COOPERATIVE NUGGET 95 CLOSING CEREMONY

FORT POLK, La. -- Cooperative Nugget 95, NATO's first Partnership For Peaceexercise in the United States, will conclude on Saturday, August 26 with aclosing ceremony at the Joint Readiness Training Center and Fort Polk.

The ceremony will mark the official ending of the historic multinationalpeacekeeping exercise which began on August 8th.
Approximately 4,000 U.S. andforeign troops from NATO and NATO's Partnership For Peace (PFP) program havebeen training together.
During exercise Cooperative Nugget 95, units practicedtactics and techniques used in peacekeeping and humanitarian relief missions.Participating nations include: (NATO members) Canada, the United Kingdom, andthe United States; (PFP nations) Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia,Hungary, Kyrgystan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic,Slovenia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.

Strongly supported by the United States, the Partnership For Peace program is amajor initiative by NATO directed at increasing confidence and cooperativeefforts to reinforce security and stability into Eastern and Central Europe.Cooperative Nugget 95 is the sixth military exercise to be conducted as part ofNATO's PFP program.

The training was designed to teach the multinational force a variety of basicpeacekeeping skills to include security patrols, convoy escort, occupyingcheckpoints and observation points, identifying and clearing minefields andassisting humanitarian relief efforts.